Father’s Day Gift Idea Countdown #3: Cupcake Tie Cake (With a Great Cake Recipe)

Position a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350°F. Put cupcake liners in your pan/s.

Put the flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, vanilla and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. (If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can put the ingredients in a bowl and use a hand mixer with the blending attachments.) Mix on slow just until the ingredients are blended together, a few seconds, then raise the speed to low-medium and continue to mix until smooth, approximately 1 additional minute.

With the motor running, add 1 egg at a time, adding the next one after the previous one has been absorbed into the mixture. Stop the motor periodically and scrape the bowl from the bottom with a rubber spatula to integrate ingredients, and return the mixer to low-medium speed. After the eggs are added, continue to mix for an additional minute to ensure the eggs have been thoroughly mixed in. This will help guarantee that the sugar is dissolved and that the flour has been thoroughly mixed in, which will help produce a luxurious mouth-feel in the final cake.

With the motor running, add the milk, 1/4 cup at a time, stopping the motor to scrape the sides and bottom between the two additions. Continue to mix for another minute or until the mixture appears smooth. Before baking, add in your slightly crushed Oreos. They should be about 1/6th the size of an Oreo. Scoop your batter into your cupcake tins. I use a large ice cream scoop for normal-size cupcakes and a small one (1″) for minis. Ensure you have at least 1 chunk of cookie in each mini. Be sure the batter is at room temp before putting it in the oven.

Bake for 15 minutes and do not open the oven until then unless your cupcakes are browned on top and not glossy (raw) anymore. After 15 minutes, touch the top of the cupcake. If it is slightly firm, pierce with a toothpick. The toothpick should come out clean or with crumbs on it.

Remove the cupcakes from the oven and take them out of the pan (you can just dump them over, delicately pull them out, or us a skewer or a knife to help you pop them out. I set them on a towel, a cooling rack, or just my countertop. Let them cool for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour. Refrigerate or freeze until ready to decorate.

ICING

INGREDIENTS:

-4 cups of powdered sugar

-2 sticks of butter

-1-2 tbsp cream

-1 tsp vanilla

-8 crushed Oreos (fairly small, if not crumby)

DIRECTIONS:

Cream the butter in a mixing bowl (paddle attachment or whisk) or with a hand mixer. It should take you a few minutes, and you might need to scrape the bowl several times to get the butter back in reach of the paddle or whisk attachment. When the butter is lighter in color and consistency, slowly sift in your powdered sugar. You have 4 cups, but it might take a little more or less. I never measure. I just add until the consistency is right (stiff enough to hold on a cupcake and loose enough to squeeze out of a bag. Adding the cream will help cut some of the sweetness and also decrease the thickness. Add vanilla when you add the cream.When the flavor and thickness is to your liking, keep mixing until the consistency is lighter and fluffier.Remove your bowl from the mixer and add in your Oreo crumbs. The picture of the icing in the mixing bowl has Oreo crumbs in it, but I chose not to put the Oreo crumbs in the blue frosting I made for the bow tie cupcake cake. Instead, I just added some gel food coloring (Wilton brand). You can get it at Michaels.

Now, your cupcakes should be cooled, so arrange them into whatever design you choose. Use your imagination: bow tie, neck tie, dad himself, the sun, the outline of a baseball/basketball/football/soccer ball, etc. I placed mine on the top of a large Tupperware, because I wasn’t going to use them right away. I put the deeper part of the Tupperware over the cupcake cake.

To frost, put your icing in a gallon Ziploc and cut about 1/2″-1″ off the bottom of the bag. Pipe your frosting around the edge of your design and start spreading in (you can see in the picture that I started spreading the icing on the lefthand side. You can pipe more in the middle and spread it around until the entire “cake” is covered (even the holes). I added a little more coloring to my leftover frosting so I could put some other details on the cake. You can use sprinkles, anything edible, or even little figures (ones that are noticeably not edible) if you choose. I shouldn’t have to say this, but if you do that, please ensure small children don’t swallow the non-edible features and choke. There–I said it.

No matter how silly your cake looks, dad will definitely like the taste of it…unless you burn them. Don’t burn them.

ENJOY!